Ideal Beauty!!?

During my time in Kumasi, Ghana, I became increasingly aware of the overwhelming presence of commercial advertising within the urban landscape. Beauty and cosmetic advertisements occupied billboards, magazines, television channels, and building facades, while companies such as Vodafone transformed large parts of the city into fields of saturated red.

Amid this visual intensity, many Ghanaian women moved continuously through the city carrying goods on their heads, transforming their bodies into mobile spaces of labor, trade, and survival.

Created during the SaNsA International Artists’ Workshop in 2009, this photo installation juxtaposes portraits of Ghanaian women with crumpled pages taken from beauty magazines. The installation’s red field echoes the omnipresent visual language of advertising surrounding the city.

Ideal Beauty!!?, Ghana, 2009 © Tooraj Khamenehzadeh